


and the Universe says

by Diamantspitzhacke (RedSoleWrites)



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Comfort, Comfort No Hurt, Gen, No Beta We Die Like Henry, Poetry, Tales From The SMP, Tales Of The SMP, Time Travel, but hopefully they're comforting, i don't know what vibes this gives off, in-between, minecraft end poem, slightly meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29193993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedSoleWrites/pseuds/Diamantspitzhacke
Summary: Karl Jacobs returns from another trip in time to the In-Between.There he has a conversation."Normally, as he returns to the In-Between, he wanders unguided, a vague sense of familiarity leading him around its pristine halls. Whoever it is that runs this place, that decided that he would be its perfect vessel, it prefers to stay unseen and unheard. The only signs of its presence are the perfectly cared for gardens and the personalized messages hidden all over."Today, though, is when he hears It."
Relationships: Karl Jacobs & The Universe, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 53





	and the Universe says

**Author's Note:**

> though this doesn't take place right after the most recent stream, it uses the new location of the In-Between for it  
> listen to whatever calming music you'd like during this, it's an experience i'd recommend  
> enjoy, dear reader

With a sudden inhale and a vague tug in the center of his chest and a blink, Karl suddenly isn’t in the world anymore. He’s out of the SMP, out of the ‘then,’ but he’s not in the ‘now’ either.

It’s a bright, blinding white all around him, orangish-yellow light spilling into the picturesque marble room.

He’s back in the In-Between.

Is this Karl’s first time there? No.

It’s not even the first time he remembers.

Over and over again, he keeps being pulled away from his time, his friends, his home. Each time he is thrust unceremoniously into a new world that he has mere moments to adapt to. Each time he dons a skin that isn’t his and slips into it like a too-tight coat: sure, it works, but it’s uncomfortable and wrong and would be easier to forgo altogether. His own body feels much more like his well-loved hoodie, though even that is losing its sense of familiar safety, as it begins altering and splitting without his consent.

His friends have noticed him getting clingier. Whoever keeps pulling him out of time doesn’t dare do it around others, and he’s used that fact like a lifeline. Despite how well they think they hide it, Karl catches Sapnap and Quackity exchanging worried glances over his shoulder or whispering where they think he can’t hear.

He sees their concern, and it hurts him to hide it all from them, especially when some of the people he meets remind him _so painfully much_ of them. He hides it anyways. The words stick in his throat every time he tries to tell them, and a warning flash of pinprick intent strikes the back of his skull. He learns quickly not to divulge the secret he’s been given.

Still, despite his desperate attempts to stay with others, he can’t be surrounded by people every hour of the day. They have obligations and other people to spend time with, and Karl knows he can’t monopolize on that.

And sometimes he has to be the one to leave, an insistent sensation of _Other_ telling him that _now is the time, you are needed Elsewhere_ , and he bids his goodbyes and walks back to his house and suddenly the world goes upside-down and he turns inside-out and he’s suddenly stuffed into another body in another place and another time and everything feels _wrongwrongwrong_ until his brain reorients itself and that _Other_ points him to where he’s needed.

It’s a different place each time.

A city among his own friends, overseeing a new mayor in a town doomed to die.

A town centuries in the past, narrating them turning against each other.

A building far in the future, watching his friends die to a man who worshipped the wrong person.

A mansion in the middle of the woods, directing a mystery that leads horrifyingly back to a too-familiar egg.

And now, a small settlement in the west, gunslingers and sheriffs and bandits galore as the hot sun beat down overhead. It was dusty and dry, the very air seeming to suck the moisture from his mouth, but Karl had had fun; at least, while it lasted. Because then there were standoffs and shootouts and a man hidden behind a bandana who had been how Karl had died here – or, at least, the poor man who Karl had pretended to be.

He can’t quite remember his name.

Huh.

But it’s over, and as the bullet makes contact with his forehead, Karl instinctively preparing for the sudden flash of pain, he is suddenly In-Between.

The grimy layer of sand that covered him is gone.

So too are the appropriately themed clothes.

And the ill-fitting sensation eases, as Karl is suddenly back in his own body.

No stumbling pain, no wormhole-esque falling feeling, just new surroundings in the span of a blink and the breadth of an inhale.

And as Karl adjusts to the new kind of blindingness, not from the overbearing sun, but instead its reflection across a sea of white, he breathes a deep sigh of relief, and walks forward.

Normally, as he returns to the In-Between, he wanders unguided, a vague sense of familiarity leading him around its pristine halls. Whoever it is that runs this place, that decided that he would be its perfect vessel, it prefers to stay unseen and unheard. The only signs of its presence are the perfectly cared for gardens and the personalized messages hidden all over.

Today, though, is when he hears _It_.

**Hello, dear child.**

**Welcome back.**

In a two-toned voice that echoes around his head without ever reaching his ears, It finally speaks to him.

He’s having a hard time describing it.

Simultaneously distant and yet comfortingly parental, the Voice reaches a part of him that he didn’t know existed and it feels like a homecoming.

“Hello?”

**You’ve done well.**

“I – I don’t exactly know what I’m doing.”

**On the contrary, we think you are quite aware.**

**You are keeping your library, after all. And those journals.**

**An excellent decision, we think.**

“I don’t understand what this is. What’s happening to me?”

**You have been Chosen, Karl Jacobs.**

**You have been a Player this game.**

**But your scope was limited.**

“But why me? Why do you keep doing this to me? Why do I have to see so much tragedy?”

**Oh, beloved child of the stars. We heard your lonely pleas to be noticed, to be special.**

**You had no place in the story.**

**So we made you the storyteller.**

With a voice suddenly small and childlike, Karl asks, “Then why does it hurt so much?”

**Dear child, you have done what all good storytellers do.**

**You’ve gotten attached to your characters.**

**You love them, and raise them, and watch proudly as they live out their lives.**

**But every story must have an ending somewhere, Karl Jacobs.**

**And it is the curse of every storyteller to have to watch their stories end.**

“But what about happy endings? The hero saves the day, the good guys win?”

**The stories you tell are so often doomed to tragedy, child.**

**But this is a part of the trade.**

**For though you may watch your stories end sadly, the story you are a part of grows brighter each time.**

**Your presence and your actions have set it on a brighter path.**

**You may not see it yet, but your world is better with you in it.**

“What?”

**You are wise beyond your years, child.**

**But so hopelessly naïve.**

**You can learn from the stories you tell.**

**Listen to their morals.**

**Watch the characters.**

Realization dawning on him like the perpetually frozen sun in the In-Between, Karl continues the Other’s line of thought. “I see what happens, I learn from their mistakes, and I prevent it from happening to my friends.”

A sense of pride washes through him, in a scope not his own. It feels like how he imagines a parent might feel watching their child take their first steps.

**Clever child.**

“So, what happens now?” He looks around the vast, open chamber, past the intricate columns and sparkling tiles. The sky is open and unmoving, a haze of pink and orange and fading indigo. It’s cloudless, and in the distance, Karl thinks he can see the echoes of stars. “I don’t – it feels like so much, for just one person. Are you sure I’m the right choice?”

**We heard your wish, Karl Jacobs.**

**It was not the wish of a weak person, or a selfish person, or an evil person.**

**It was the wish of a lost one.**

**All you wanted was guidance to aid your friends.**

**And we looked into your heart and we saw it was good.**

Karl doesn’t know how to describe his feelings right now. He feels so hopelessly vulnerable and unbearably _seen_ , and yet he feels safer than he’d ever been. This is more than the comfort of confiding in a friend, more than the warmth of calling out to a parent. This is knowing that he’d told the universe his innermost thoughts, and it doesn’t judge him for it. It supports him, helps him, carries him forward.

It’s–

It’s a nice feeling.

And as he stares at the garden blooming around him, his feet carrying him to the open air, and as he sits down on the swing and gently starts moving it, he feels the ghost of a hand on his shoulder. It’s somehow delicately elegant and firmly strong, and though he’s in the middle of nowhere with nothing but sky and stars for as far as the eye can see, it feels like home.

And so Karl closes his eyes, and leans back on the swing, his arms pulling on the chains, and he stares at the unmoving sky, and he asks the Universe for a story.

And the Universe obliges.

**Once there was a Hero, and they were bright and shining and all the world wished they could be.**

**And the world sees them, and it grows all the more luminous for it.**

**They live in their world, undergoing their journey, as all Heroes must.**

**They find their mentor.**

**And thus they learn.**

**They find their quest.**

**And thus they grow.**

**They find their ending.**

**And thus they blossom.**

**And the Hero may not be happy.**

**Heroes do not often lead happy lives.**

**But they bring happiness to so many others, simply by being there.**

**And even when they feel alone, when they feel as though the whole world of people has abandoned them,**

**There is the Universe.**

**The Universe cannot help the Hero when they are sad.**

**The Universe cannot help the Hero when they are hurt.**

**The Universe cannot help the Hero when they are tired.**

**But the Universe watches the Hero always.**

**And no matter the ups and downs of the Hero’s life,**

**No matter the wrongs they do,**

**Or the words they leave unspoken,**

**Or the feelings in the silence of their hearts,**

**The Universe sees all of it.**

**The Universe does not judge them for it.**

**The Universe watches.**

**The Universe tells their story.**

**When the Hero calls out to the lonely sky, the Universe hears it.**

**And sometimes, deep in the midst of a dream, the Hero hears the Universe respond.**

**And what does the Universe say?**

**And the Universe says I love you.**

**T** **⍑∷𝙹∴** **𝙹⎓⎓** **ℸ ̣** **⍑** **ᒷ ʖ** **𝙹∴** **ꖎ** **╎** **リ** **ᒷᓭ. S** **ᔑ** **╎** **ꖎ** **ᔑ** **∴** **ᔑ||** **⎓∷𝙹** **ᒲ** **ℸ ̣** **⍑** **ᒷ** **ᓭᔑ** **⎓** **ᒷ** **⍑** **ᔑ** **∷ʖ** **𝙹∷. C** **ᔑ** **ℸ ̣** **ᓵ** **⍑** **ℸ ̣** **⍑** **ᒷ** **ℸ ̣** **∷** **ᔑ** **↸** **ᒷ** **∴** **╎** **リ** **↸** **ᓭ** **╎** **リ ||** **𝙹** **⚍∷** **ᓭᔑ** **╎** **ꖎ** **ᓭ. E ̇/!¡** **ꖎ** **𝙹∷** **ᒷ. D** **∷** **ᒷᔑᒲ. D** **╎** **ᓭᓵ** **𝙹⍊** **ᒷ** **∷.**

**Author's Note:**

> in every story is a hero  
> but the universe is full of endless stories  
> and you are the hero in your own  
> and the Universe says I love you
> 
> the Universe loves you


End file.
